


hook, line, and sinker

by aspalas



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Fishing, Gen, Introspection, Mentions of Violence, other characters are mentioned but do not show up, this takes place between end of season 2 and s03e02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:42:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29617980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspalas/pseuds/aspalas
Summary: It was probably a baseless superstition, yes, but he could understand the reasoning behind it— if you name a lure after a loved one, that’s all the more reason to reel it in and bring it back home: for their sake.
Kudos: 1





	hook, line, and sinker

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last year when I rewatched Hannibal with a whole new perspective on the writing and direction. I don't know if I'm satisfied with this but what really struck me was Will and Abigail's relationship and various "fantasy" scenes, so that's why I wrote this. Also, I don't know if there's any canon about Will's parents so I just kind of fit it in there.

How long had he been here, patiently sitting on the bank of a river staring at the water? Here in the Virginia forest he often frequented, Will seemed to notice that the sun always stood perfectly at a certain late afternoon angle that made the sunbeams dip and pour through the tree foliage. He hadn’t remembered what time he had arrived nor considered when he should leave. All he knew was it was the perfect hour for casting out the lure he had procured a few days ago in preparation for this fishing trip. Fumbling around his waist, he pulled it out of his belt and couldn’t help admire his handiwork – a fish sparkling with an array of blue and silver faux scales that captured the sunlight’s glare, making them shimmer in the reflection. While the mold was a generic fish type one could easily find at any mom and pop supply store, the raven’s tail feather attached to the base made it beautiful and unique in Will’s eyes.

Will hooked up to the string as the painted eye stared at him expectantly, ready to be cast out at his command. The river was moving quickly against his legs; not uncomfortably strong to sweep him away, but resilient enough to be a reminder, urging him to get on with it. But first he had to finish the motion with the most important part: baptizing the lure with a name.

His father had told him you need not only skill, but also luck on your side when you’re fishing: thus, by christening your lure, you’re giving yourself an ally, a lucky charm in the never ending battle between the kingdom of man and fish. Will didn’t quite understand the appeal to do so when his father explained it to him. Lures were man made devices used to accomplish a task, namely, to catch fish. It was given a name that plainly stated its intended use. It would be like naming your car or household cleaning objects (the former Will knew people did and he still didn’t understand why). At least giving a name to an animal or a child made sense. In due time they could understand they have an identity, ego, and id; a name establishes a groundwork for a sense of being. Without a name you can lose your identity and sense of self.

Will had argued, trying to make sense of it. _Dad, lures don’t have a cognitive understanding of self. They can’t respond to you, they can’t feel anything._ His father probably regretted even bringing him out that day.

Dad smiled. He was evidently expecting the question and the answer sprung off his tongue. “If you name the lure after someone you love, the better the chances are that you’ll catch your fish. That’s the old superstition, anyway. Your grandfather taught me that and now I’m passing it down the Graham line. You should feel lucky to know this, William.”

Will mulled this over as his father announced his lure would be named after Will’s mother, like he’s always done, but Will could attest that had never done it until now (and he didn’t want to point it out because Dad was in a rare good mood). Probably a baseless superstition, yes, but he could understand the reasoning behind it— if you name a lure after a loved one, that’s all the more reason to reel it in and bring it back home.

To be frank, since Will grew older he hardly dabbled in this practice anymore. But there were some times, Will noticed, when he was having a particularly bad day with the day’s catch, he would catch himself going through the old motions. Casting the spell on his lure ensured at least a few good catches for that day. He didn’t believe in magic on principle but perhaps if his father had given him something worthwhile, it was this trick.

Now Will, the Will presently standing in the river without his father, without his mother waiting for both of them back home, is on the precipice of thirty-one and he hasn’t seen the river they stood in for years, much less knows if it still exists. He studies the lure absently, attempting to re-invoke the last feeling that resembled love to him. While his mother and father are long gone from this earth, it’s difficult for him to classify them as people he loved, or even really spared a thought about. Their love was conditional, situational—well, his mother’s, anyway; Dad was kind enough to bring him here and there until he was too sick to even move, content with wasting away with Will’s mother’s urn in his last days. His thoughts drift to Alana, how he lusted over her once upon a time. It would be cruel to use her name for something like this, he decides. And Abigail—

Though not his own flesh and blood Abigail was the closest person Will could entertain the thought of being a member of his family. The dogs were one thing; strays that had a lost, hollow look in their eyes Will could achingly empathize with. When he saw Abigail’s eyes the day he killed her father – though could he even be thought of one if he all but discarded his humanity by that point? – Will saw something in her eyes that he had never seen in a dog’s: unparalleled despair as her world, and Will’s hands, were now indelibly stained red

He didn’t want to erase her pain and try to convince her everything would be all right. Loss was something you always carried with you in one form or another. Some of his dogs would have their scars forever no matter how the hair grew around them, and when they died, the surviving ones would recognize that loss in their own canine way. But he wanted to give Abigail a new, yet modest, comfortable life. It pained him to see her in the hospital, a kerchief wrapped around her neck to hide the sins of her father. But admittedly, Will was not without an internal struggle: a shadow named Garret Jacob Hobbs stood on the edge of his mind, just a little beyond the river, in the dark thicket of forest that the sun did not reach. _If I adopted Abigail, am I doing it for her—or is it just the influence of Garrett Jacob Hobbs that wants me to do it – and finish what he started?_

Will adjusted the lure so it slotted perfectly with the hook. No, Hobbs and himself were different. Hobbs desired the destruction of his family and others. He would claim human slaughter was simultaneously for Abigail’s benefit and protection. Never would he dedicate a lure after his daughter – a sign of love for her, a sign that he cared.

Will often dreamed of fishing here with Abigail. He remembered smiling in them, and Abigail smiling back at him. He wasn’t the superstitious type, but Will wanted to entrust that dream to this lure. (And he knew if he let this dream go, allow it to entice his prey, it would be a place neither he nor Abigail would ever return to.)

The lure, now christened with the name Abigail in his mental River Jordan, would be cast to catch the destroyer of that world – though, ironically, it was also the one who intended to rebuild it. Will smiled wryly, bitterly. _He_ claimed that if Will simply came around, dropped everything but his identity and left, they could leave for the new world, like they were a trio of settlers heading off to a strange land untouched by civilization. A place where there was no Alana, no Jack, no nightmares of that creature to consume him, drown him; and certainly a world where the headstones of the Grahams sitting in a dusty, abandoned Virginia cemetery would cease to exist.

The idea had certainly been tempting. Will had cast his lure in by then, right hand idling on the reel while his left held the rod steady. He watched the fake fish sit idly on the still rushing water’s surface. Will wondered if the bait wasn’t enough.

Minutes passed as he watched his lure, but Will stayed patient. This was half the battle of it all, and he wouldn’t let the crisp air or the sun try to distract him. He felt Hobbes’ eyes on him in the brush’s thicket. This would be for Abigail. For a peaceful life with her. So that she can take off her kerchief and they can go fishing again, together—

A shallow jerk of the fishing wire snapped Will back to reality, warning him that something was lurking under the rushing waters, which had now turned an icy black. A thick cloud covered the sun, and a chilly breeze bit at Will’s face. Will could sense danger below him, though he couldn’t see the size of his prey.

As he began reeling the fish, it occurred to Will that the more he resisted the pulling, the farther he was being dragged into the stream, now waist deep. He was beginning to feel the cold seep into his skin, burrow itself deep in the marrow of his bones, threatening to bring him down. He pulled and pulled, trying to stand his ground, but something in his gut was telling him what he was afraid of: his prey was too strong, and it was dragging Will with it.

Something pushed at Will’s back; a set of strong hands left him tumbling face first into the icy waters. His prey seized his chance: Will and the lure named Abigail plunged into into the now abysmal dark water. The stream and the woods were no more—it had become a vast ocean, and Will was sinking, gripping onto the fishing rod with both hands akin to how one clutches a life raft.

Will wondered why it didn’t work. He felt his lungs fill with the freezing water, the sharp liquid stinging his eyes and covering his ears. Was it because the “gift” Hannibal had given him corrupted him, changed him? Had the gift spoiled the bait? Will wondered, his vision hazy, body numbing. But it wasn’t Hannibal’s fault—Will had accepted that gift, opened it, consumed it. Just as readily, Hannibal had consumed Will’s gift. It was a mutual exchange.

He held onto the fishing rod desperately, trying to recall the colors of the lure before he went under completely: its shape, the streaks of color, and its unblinking eye that trusted his judgment. The lure entrusted him to cast it in the waters, expecting Will to reel it back in once the fish was caught— or was that nothing but Will’s delusion? Maybe he made a mistake naming it. Will was its creator and brought it into this world, raven tail and painted on scales and all. Perhaps it now had a life, a mind, and a soul of its own. It could do what it pleased beyond his control.

For a while, there was darkness. He still felt like he was sinking into some unknown abyss, one hand still tightly wound on his fishing rod, yet because he had lost his glasses, Will couldn’t tell if the lure was still attached. Will wondered if this was the new world Hannibal spoke of. With his right hand he tried to reach out for someone, anyone, anything. With his free hand he scrambled for purchase into the inky black. He wondered if he was at the bottom of the ocean. It was getting hard to breath.

Will tried to fight his eyes closing, but he was getting tired. All that preparing, readying, for this moment where he would catch his prey was catching up to him. He was going to be consumed, he realized. It was big enough to drag him down here, trap him, and now feast on him. If this was Hannibal’s new world, then so be it.

Faintly, he imagined someone next to him. Faintly, that someone took his hand, and felt the sensation of floating. Faintly, he thought he could hear waves crashing around his ears, foam and sea salt rushing into his eyes. The call of a seagull assaulting his senses. Before he lost consciousness completely, Will saw the flecks of blue and silver at the edge of his vision.

Will took a deep breath, and the world turned white.

Forcing his what felt like bruised eyelids to open, Will realized he was not in any kind of body of water but a hospital room in a hospital bed. The shallow stream and the deep ocean had disappeared, and his fishing rod was no longer grasped in his hand. He may be physically in the hospital, but his mind was still in that dark ocean, struggling to find the lure named Abigail.

Abigail, Abigail…

His insanely lucid fishing experience melted in the antiseptic white of the hospital at the thought of her name as he was pulled back into the horrifying reality of his life. It was coming back to him in bits and pieces, though more quickly than the last instance he lost time. The blade shining in the fluorescent light, the blood on the ground haloing Alana’s head, the bandage covering the part of Abigail’s head where the ear was supposed to be, and—

Tears prickled Will’s eyes. He had cast out the lure but the prey escaped a second time – and instead of taking Will’s lure with him, he disposed of it instead.

His father told him naming lures was for good luck, a spell to conjure prosperity in a type of man-directed hunting. What he didn’t tell him was that losing the lure dispels that illusion and leaves you with nothing, while the fish gets the bait instead. Perhaps Will didn’t have it in him to be a fisherman if it left him this empty.

Will could discard his fishing pole for a hunting gun instead. He would name that one differently.  
  
He wondered the next time he’d look in the mirror he would see flecks of Garret Jacob Hobbs clinging to his skin.

_See?_

There wasn’t a forest or river anymore to protect him. Hobbes had overstepped all of those barriers, crossed the river, and dissipated around Will like a fine mist—and Will breathed him in, accepted him as not a parasite but a part of himself. Hobbes had always spoke directly to him, but it was always an outside voice, calling from somewhere away. 

Now, it was coming from within.

_Do you see now?_

Will saw all too clearly.


End file.
